Method and apparatus for handling of items delivered from parallel lines and to be grouped as portions of different items

ABSTRACT

In order to transfer articles, such as edible ice products of different characters delivered from several parallel production or packing lines, into packable groups of such articles it is known to convey the articles on respective accumulation conveyors and to collectively transfer the items from the respective end positions on these conveyors to a common conveyor system for bringing each set of articles thus transferred to be fed to a cartonizer line. According to the invention, it is advantageous to use but a single accumulation conveyor, to which the articles are supplied in respective feeding stations arranged longitudinally interspaced along a rear feeding stretch of the conveyor, and to control the article supply in such a manner that each set of different articles is built up serially at a delivery end of the conveyor. The collective article transfer may then be effected set-by-set in order to isolate successive groups of articles for cartonizing.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the handling of items, primarilyindividually-packaged edible ice products such as ice lollies, which inrespectively different characters are delivered from a multi-lineproduction or packaging machine, and which thereafter are desired to begrouped in portions consisting of one or more of each of the relevantcharacters.

It is a concrete starting point for the invention that it is desired toprovide carton packages with a content of e.g. 3-4 different items,primarily with individual packages of different appearance, which in thefollowing are characterized by different colors or types (A,B,C), inthat here the extent to which the items in these different packages areidentical or of different kinds is less decisive. In principle, theproblem presents itself in the same way in cases where items ofdifferent kinds are concerned which can possibly be packed in identicalindividual packages.

Consequently, the relevant task will be to gather the items deliveredfrom the parallel lines into equal groups of single items from each ofthe lines, with the view to the transfer of these groups to respectivereceiving units, preferably portion cartons. There is no immediateproblem whatsoever involved in solving this problem, but it very quicklybecomes problematic when various additional factors have to be takeninto consideration, primarily that for various reasons productionstoppages of shorter or longer duration can arise in one or even more ofthe delivery lines, e.g. when breakage occurs in an associated line ofpackaging material in connection with a so-called flow-packing of theitems.

This will already require that in order to ensure that the portioncartons are not transferred with deficient item portions, a distinctbuffer capacity and/or ejection units for items to be rejected,re-circulated or separate collection must be arranged in the individuallines. This can also be arranged in a multiplicity of ways, but theinvention is based on one of the concrete methods which have foundwidespread application in practice, namely the use of transport means ofthe “floating pocket” type. This means that the items from the differentdelivery lines are transferred to respective, transverse,further-transporting accumulation conveyors, and brought to supportunits which are friction-driven on these conveyors in such a mannerthat, at a delivery end thereof, they can be packed closely together, sothat at these delivery ends there will constantly exits items whichthen, by use of suitable lifting-over means, can be gripped andtransferred transversely for placing in groups in respective cartonsdelivered on a conveyor.

Brief production stoppages in the different delivery lines can hereby beabsorbed, while for stoppages of long duration there can be arrangedejection means for items to be discarded, or accumulation stations inconnection with the transverse-leading conveyor sections which deliverthe items to the respective “float pocket” conveyors.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is a plant of precisely this type which is the starting point for theinvention, in that with the invention it has been realized that thistype of plant can be modified in an advantageous manner, namely amongother things for the simplification of the said lifting-over means, andin achieving that use shall be made of only a single float pocketconveyor, in the followed referred to as the slide conveyor withassociated slide trays for receiving the individual items.

According to the invention, between the said delivery lines and therelevant slide conveyor, respective transfer conveyors extend which openout in mutually separated delivery areas seen in the longitudinaldirection of the slide conveyor, each of which has means for controlleddelivery of the foremost item to a slide tray in the relevant position.Correspondingly, means are provided at each of these positions for thecontrolled retention and individual release of the slide trays in andfrom these item receiving stations. By means of a related control unit,it is hereby possible to achieve that different items from the deliveryzone are fed forward on the slide conveyor in the desired groupedsequence, for example A,B,C+A,B,C etc. in the case of three differentproduct types, and since these groups will or can be constantlydelivered up towards a fixed “end station” on the slide conveyor, itwill be relatively simple to arrange a repeated lateral transfer ofthese groups to the carton line. This task will be considerably easierand safer to solve than where a lateral transfer must be arranged fromseveral different slide conveyors lying at different distances from thecarton line.

The above-mentioned problem with regard to local production stoppagescan be overcome by the leading-out of items from the conveyor sectionswhich are inserted between the discharge lines and the individualfeeding-in positions along the slide conveyor.

The invention will afford the considerable advantage that plant whichhas been originally acquired for the handling of just a single or twodifferent product types, can be extended relatively easily and cheaplyfor the handling of one or several additional product types, since usecan continue to be made of the single existing slide conveyor, andmerely adding extra conveyor means between added supply lines and theexisting slide conveyor, i.e. the plant according to the invention willto a considerable degree be flexible with regard to various userrequirements.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following, the invention is explained in more detail withreference to the drawing, in which

FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a plant according to theinvention, and

FIG. 2 is a side view of the plant's slide conveyors and the overlyingdelivery lines.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In FIG. 1 there is shown a packaging machine 2 from which three deliverylines A, B and C extend for delivered items 4, each of which is of adifferent character, such as ice lollies, on a particular delivery line,which seen from above are parallel, while in relation to the horizontalthey are inclined in different direction, so that their delivery endslie in the same vertical plane but at different heights therein. Thedelivered items 4 of a different character are fed in on the respectivetransverse conveyor belts a, b and c, which convey the items 4 forwardand down to respective delivery stations A1, B1 and C1 immediately abovea slide conveyor 6 which is equipped with a number of friction-drivenslide trays 8.

As described in more detail below, these slide trays serve to feed therespective items 4 on line A, items 4 on line B and items 4 on line C tothe delivery end of the slide conveyor 6, and in such a way that at thisend there are gathered groups of items in precisely the relevantsequence. As shown by the arrow 10, the foremost of these groups aretransferred laterally to a cartonizer unit which, on a parallel belt 12,conveys open cartons 14 into which item groups are lowered, or possiblyinserted in connection with cartons lying sideways. As shown by thearrow 18, the thus “assortment-filled” cartons can thereafter be ledaway for closing and delivery.

At each of the delivery stations A1, B1 and C1 of the conveyors a, b andc, there is placed a stop 20, possibly in the form of a sluice-wheel,which is operated from a control unit and which can be controlled todeliver items one at a time. Correspondingly, at each of these deliveryends there is a stop 22 operated from a control unit for thefriction-driving of the slide trays 8, namely so that these can bestopped in and released from precisely those positions in which they canreceive items 4 from the overlying conveyors a, b or c.

It will hereby be possible for the control unit to direct the supplysequence in such a manner that

1) empty slide trays can be directed forward to any of the deliverypositions a1, b1, c1, i.e. by deactivation of the above-mentioned stop22 for the slide trays 8, and

2) a selective supply of individual items 4 can be arranged to therespective, temporarily stopped slide trays 8 in each of the relevantpositions.

The result is that by means of the control unit, not only can a feedingof an empty slide tray 8 to each of the stop units 22 be arranged, i.e.while the upper stop 20 blocks for the release of items, but also acontrolled delivery of items to the slide trays thus delivered, and asubsequent release of the slide trays in such an order that thesequences ABC—ABC— are formed up against a releasable stop 24.

In FIG. 1 it is shown with the arrow 26 that in connection with theconveyors belts a, b, c, there can be arranged respective connectionlines to not-shown accumulation or rejection areas for the cases inwhich operational disturbances arise as mentioned above.

In principle, instead of the slide tray conveyor 6, use can be made ofan accumulation conveyor of any other type, including with directfriction under-support of the items 4, whereby it will merely beconsiderably more difficult to control the items in a secure manner.

It must be mentioned that the feeding of the items 4 into the slidetrays 8 does not necessarily have to be effected from above, cf. FIG. 1,in that the feeding of the items can well take place from the side ofthe conveyor, such as this is shown by the supply lines 30 indicated bythe stippled lines in FIG. 1.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of handling items of differentcharacter, primarily individually packed edible ice products such as icelollies, comprising: delivering items of a particular differentcharacter from one of a plurality of parallel supply lines in differentconfigurations for subsequent grouping together in portions comprising adesired relevant configuration including items of a different character;delivering the items of different character on the plurality of supplylines to accumulation means for either floating friction conveyance orconveyance on support trays for the relevant configuration of items ofdifferent character for subsequent selective delivery to a commontransfer area; and transferring the relevant configurations at thecommon transfer area to a conveyor means for the further conveyance ofthe successively received relevant configurations, wherein each supplyline includes a feeding station including a feeding means for feeding anitem of different character and each feeding station is successivelyarranged along a longitudinal direction of the accumulation means, andwherein selective control of stop means for releasable retention of anitem or a slide tray on the accumulation means at each of the feedingstations and of the feeding means for the controlled supply ofindividual items of a different character to the accumulation means iseffected in such a manner that part rows of the different items are fedserially onto the accumulation means such that said part rows of itemsin the relevant configuration are brought from the accumulation means ata delivery end for the collective delivery of the relevantconfigurations to said conveyor means for further transport of therelevant configurations.
 2. The method of handling items according toclaim 2, wherein conveyance of the relevant configurations of items ofdifferent character is performed with a floating pocket conveyor means.3. The method of handling items according to claim 1, where the relevantconfigurations of items of different character are carton packaged inconnection with said transfer.
 4. Plant for execution of a method ofhandling items of different character, primarily individually packededible ice products such as ice lollies, said plant comprising: parallelsupply lines each feeding items of a particular different characterincluding feeding stations arranged at a mutual distance in alongitudinal direction of an accumulation conveyor, stop meansassociated with the accumulation conveyor for releasable retention onthe accumulation conveyor of an item or a slide tray at each of thefeeding stations, said accumulation conveyor including accumulationmeans for floating friction conveyance of the items or slide trays forselective delivery of relevant configurations of items of a differentcharacter, a common transfer area for successively transferring therelevant configurations of items of a different character, conveyormeans for the further conveyance of the successively transferredrelevant configurations of items of a different character, and a controlmeans, wherein the control means provides selective control of the stopmeans for releasable retention of an item or a slide tray on theaccumulation means at each of the feeding stations and selective controlof the feeding stations for the controlled supple of individual items tothe accumulation means in such a manner that part rows of the differentitems are fed serially onto the accumulation means such that said partrows of items in the relevant configuration are brought from theaccumulation means at a delivery end thereof for collective delivery ofthe relevant configuration to said conveyor means for further transportof the relevant configurations.
 5. Plant according to claim 4, whereinsaid accumulation conveyor comprises a floating pocket conveyor means.6. Plant according to claim 4, wherein said plant comprises cartonpackaging means associated with the conveyor means for packaging therelevant configurations of items of a different character.